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diff --git a/old/tkfbl10.txt b/old/tkfbl10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fb89009 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/tkfbl10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2510 @@ +*The Project Gutenberg Etext of Thankful Blossom, by Bret Harte* +#2 in our series by Bret Harte + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Association/Carnegie-Mellon + University" within the 60 days following each + date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) + your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, +scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty +free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution +you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg +Association / Carnegie-Mellon University". + +*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +THANKFUL BLOSSOM + +by BRET HARTE + + + + +I + + +The time was the year of grace 1779; the locality, Morristown, New +Jersey. + +It was bitterly cold. A northeasterly wind had been stiffening the +mud of the morning's thaw into a rigid record of that day's +wayfaring on the Baskingridge road. The hoof-prints of cavalry, +the deep ruts left by baggage-wagons, and the deeper channels worn +by artillery, lay stark and cold in the waning light of an April +day. There were icicles on the fences, a rime of silver on the +windward bark of maples, and occasional bare spots on the rocky +protuberances of the road, as if Nature had worn herself out at the +knees and elbows through long waiting for the tardy spring. A few +leaves disinterred by the thaw became crisp again, and rustled in +the wind, making the summer a thing so remote that all human hope +and conjecture fled before them. + +Here and there the wayside fences and walls were broken down or +dismantled; and beyond them fields of snow downtrodden and +discolored, and strewn with fragments of leather, camp equipage, +harness, and cast-off clothing, showed traces of the recent +encampment and congregation of men. On some there were still +standing the ruins of rudely constructed cabins, or the semblance +of fortification equally rude and incomplete. A fox stealing along +a half-filled ditch, a wolf slinking behind an earthwork, typified +the human abandonment and desolation. + +One by one the faint sunset tints faded from the sky; the far-off +crests of the Orange hills grew darker; the nearer files of pines +on the Whatnong Mountain became a mere black background; and, with +the coming-on of night, came too an icy silence that seemed to +stiffen and arrest the very wind itself. The crisp leaves no +longer rustled; the waving whips of alder and willow snapped no +longer; the icicles no longer dropped a cold fruitage from barren +branch and spray; and the roadside trees relapsed into stony quiet, +so that the sound of horse's hoofs breaking through the thin, dull, +lustreless films of ice that patched the furrowed road, might have +been heard by the nearest Continental picket a mile away. + +Either a knowledge of this, or the difficulties of the road, +evidently irritated the viewless horseman. Long before he became +visible, his voice was heard in half-suppressed objurgation of the +road, of his beast, of the country folk, and the country generally. +"Steady, you jade!" "Jump, you devil, jump!" "Curse the road, and +the beggarly farmers that durst not mend it!" And then the moving +bulk of horse and rider suddenly arose above the hill, floundered +and splashed, and then as suddenly disappeared, and the rattling +hoof-beats ceased. + +The stranger had turned into a deserted lane still cushioned with +untrodden snow. A stone wall on one hand--in better keeping and +condition than the boundary monuments of the outlying fields-- +bespoke protection and exclusiveness. Half-way up the lane the +rider checked his speed, and, dismounting, tied his horse to a +wayside sapling. This done, he went cautiously forward toward the +end of the lane, and a farm-house from whose gable window a light +twinkled through the deepening night. Suddenly he stopped, +hesitated, and uttered an impatient ejaculation. The light had +disappeared. He turned sharply on his heel, and retraced his steps +until opposite a farm-shed that stood a few paces from the wall. +Hard by, a large elm cast the gaunt shadow of its leafless limbs on +the wall and surrounding snow. The stranger stepped into this +shadow, and at once seemed to become a part of its trembling +intricacies. + +At the present moment it was certainly a bleak place for a tryst. +There was snow yet clinging to the trunk of the tree, and a film of +ice on its bark; the adjacent wall was slippery with frost, and +fringed with icicles. Yet in all there was a ludicrous suggestion +of some sentiment past and unseasonable: several dislodged stones +of the wall were so disposed as to form a bench and seats, and +under the elm-tree's film of ice could still be seen carved on its +bark the effigy of a heart, divers initials, and the legend, "Thine +Forever." + +The stranger, however, kept his eyes fixed only on the farm-shed +and the open field beside it. Five minutes passed in fruitless +expectancy. Ten minutes! And then the rising moon slowly lifted +herself over the black range of the Orange hills, and looked at +him, blushing a little, as if the appointment were her own. + +The face and figure thus illuminated were those of a strongly +built, handsome man of thirty, so soldierly in bearing that it +needed not the buff epaulets and facings to show his captain's rank +in the Continental army. Yet there was something in his facial +expression that contradicted the manliness of his presence,--an +irritation and querulousness that were inconsistent with his size +and strength. This fretfulness increased as the moments went by +without sign or motion in the faintly lit field beyond, until, in +peevish exasperation, he began to kick the nearer stones against +the wall. + +"Moo-oo-w!" + +The soldier started. Not that he was frightened, nor that he had +failed to recognize in these prolonged syllables the deep-chested, +half-drowsy low of a cow, but that it was so near him--evidently +just beside the wall. If an object so bulky could have approached +him so near without his knowledge, might not she-- + +"Moo-oo!" + +He drew nearer the wall cautiously. "So, Cushy! Mooly! Come up, +Bossy!" he said persuasively. "Moo"--but here the low unexpectedly +broke down, and ended in a very human and rather musical little +laugh. + +"Thankful!" exclaimed the soldier, echoing the laugh a trifle +uneasily and affectedly as a hooded little head arose above the +wall. + +"Well," replied the figure, supporting a prettily rounded chin on +her hands, as she laid her elbows complacently on the wall,--"well, +what did you expect? Did you want me to stand here all night, +while you skulked moonstruck under a tree? Or did you look for me +to call you by name? did you expect me to shout out, 'Capt. Allan +Brewster--'" + +"Thankful, hush!" + +"Capt. Allan Brewster of the Connecticut Contingent," continued the +girl, with an affected raising of a low, pathetic voice that was, +however, inaudible beyond the tree. "Capt. Brewster, behold me,-- +your obleeged and humble servant and sweetheart to command." + +Capt. Brewster succeeded, after a slight skirmish at the wall, in +possessing himself of the girl's hand; at which; although still +struggling, she relented slightly. + +"It isn't every lad that I'd low for," she said, with an affected +pout, "and there may be others that would not take it amiss; though +there be fine ladies enough at the assembly halls at Morristown as +might think it hoydenish?" + +"Nonsense, love," said the captain, who had by this time mounted +the wall, and encircled the girl's waist with his arm. "Nonsense! +you startled me only. But," he added, suddenly taking her round +chin in his hand, and turning her face toward the moon with an +uneasy half-suspicion, "why did you take that light from the +window? What has happened?" + +"We had unexpected guests, sweetheart," said Thankful: "the count +just arrived." + +"That infernal Hessian!" He stopped, and gazed questioningly into +her face. The moon looked upon her at the same time: the face was +as sweet, as placid, as truthful, as her own. Possibly these two +inconstants understood each other. + +"Nay, Allan, he is not a Hessian, but an exiled gentleman from +abroad,--a nobleman--" + +"There are no noblemen now," sniffed the trooper contemptuously. +"Congress has so decreed it. All men are born free and equal." + +"But they are not, Allan," said Thankful, with a pretty trouble in +her brows: "even cows are not born equal. Is yon calf that was +dropped last night by Brindle the equal of my red heifer whose +mother come by herself in a ship from Surrey? Do they look equal?" + +"Titles are but breath," said Capt. Brewster doggedly. There was +an ominous pause. + +"Nay, there is one nobleman left," said Thankful; "and he is my +own,--my nature's nobleman!" + +Capt. Brewster did not reply. From certain arch gestures and +wreathed smiles with which this forward young woman accompanied her +statement, it would seem to be implied that the gentleman who stood +before her was the nobleman alluded to. At least, he so accepted +it, and embraced her closely, her arms and part of her mantle +clinging around his neck. In this attitude they remained quiet for +some moments, slightly rocking from side to side like a metronome; +a movement, I fancy, peculiarly bucolic, pastoral, and idyllic, and +as such, I wot, observed by Theocritus and Virgil. + +At these supreme moments weak woman usually keeps her wits about +her much better than your superior reasoning masculine animal; and, +while the gallant captain was losing himself upon her perfect lips, +Miss Thankful distinctly heard the farm-gate click, and otherwise +noticed that the moon was getting high and obtrusive. She half +released herself from the captain's arms, thoughtfully and +tenderly--but firmly. "Tell me all about yourself, Allan dear," +she said quietly, making room for him on the wall,--"all, +everything." + +She turned upon him her beautiful eyes,--eyes habitually earnest +and even grave in expression, yet holding in their brave brown +depths a sweet, childlike reliance and dependency; eyes with a +certain tender, deprecating droop in the brown-fringed lids, and +yet eyes that seemed to say to every man who looked upon them, "I +am truthful: be frank with me." Indeed, I am convinced there is +not one of my impressible sex, who, looking in those pleading eyes, +would not have perjured himself on the spot rather than have +disappointed their fair owner. + +Capt. Brewster's mouth resumed its old expression of discontent. + +"Everything is growing worse, Thankful, and the cause is lost. +Congress does nothing, and Washington is not the man for the +crisis. Instead of marching to Philadelphia, and forcing that +wretched rabble of Hancock and Adams at the point of the bayonet, +he writes letters." + +"A dignified, formal old fool," interrupted Mistress Thankful +indignantly; "and look at his wife! Didn't Mistress Ford and +Mistress Baily, ay, and the best blood of Morris County, go down to +his Excellency's in their finest bibs and tuckers, and didn't they +find my lady in a pinafore doing chores? Vastly polite treatment, +indeed! As if the whole world didn't know that the general was +taken by surprise when my lady came riding up from Virginia with +all those fine cavaliers, just to see what his Excellency was doing +at these assembly balls. And fine doings, I dare say." + +"This is but idle gossip, Thankful," said Capt. Brewster with the +faintest appearance of self-consciousness; "the assembly balls are +conceived by the general to strengthen the confidence of the +townsfolk, and mitigate the rigors of the winter encampment. I go +there myself rarely: I have but little taste for junketing and +gavotting, with my country in such need. No, Thankful! What we +want is a leader; and the men of Connecticut feel it keenly. If I +have been spoken of in that regard," added the captain with a +slight inflation of his manly breast, "it is because they know of +my sacrifices,--because as New England yeomen they know my devotion +to the cause. They know of my suffering--" + +The bright face that looked into his was suddenly afire with +womanly sympathy, the pretty brow was knit, the sweet eyes +overflowed with tenderness. "Forgive me, Allan. I forgot-- +perhaps, love--perhaps, dearest, you are hungry now." + +"No, not now," replied Captain Brewster, with gloomy stoicism; +"yet," he added, "it is nearly a week since I have tasted meat." + +"I--I--brought a few things with me," continued the girl, with a +certain hesitating timidity. She reached down, and produced a +basket from the shadow of the wall. "These chickens"--she held up +a pair of pullets--"the commander-in-chief himself could not buy: I +kept them for MY commander! And this pot of marmalade, which I +know my Allan loves, is the same I put up last summer. I thought +[very tenderly] you might like a piece of that bacon you liked so +once, dear. Ah, sweetheart, shall we ever sit down to our little +board? Shall we ever see the end of this awful war? Don't you +think, dear [very pleadingly], it would be best to give it up? +King George is not such a very bad man, is he? I've thought, +sweetheart [very confidently], that mayhap you and he might make it +all up without the aid of those Washingtons, who do nothing but +starve one to death. And if the king only knew you, Allan,--should +see you as I do, sweetheart,--he'd do just as you say." + +During this speech she handed him the several articles alluded to; +and he received them, storing them away in such receptacles of his +clothing as were convenient--with this notable difference, that +with HER the act was graceful and picturesque: with him there was a +ludicrousness of suggestion that his broad shoulders and uniform +only heightened. + +"I think not of myself, lass," he said, putting the eggs in his +pocket, and buttoning the chickens within his martial breast. "I +think not of myself, and perhaps I often spare that counsel which +is but little heeded. But I have a duty to my men--to Connecticut. +[He here tied the marmalade up in his handkerchief.] I confess I +have sometimes thought I might, under provocation, be driven to +extreme measures for the good of the cause. I make no pretence to +leadership, but--" + +"With you at the head of the army," broke in Thankful +enthusiastically, "peace would be declared within a fortnight." + +There is no flattery, however outrageous, that a man will not +accept from the woman whom he believes loves him. He will perhaps +doubt its influence in the colder judgment of mankind; but he will +consider that this poor creature, at least, understands him, and in +some vague way represents the eternal but unrecognized verities. +And when this is voiced by lips that are young and warm and red, it +is somehow quite as convincing as the bloodless, remoter utterance +of posterity. + +Wherefore the trooper complacently buttoned the compliment over his +chest with the pullets. + +"I think you must go now, Allan," she said, looking at him with +that pseudo-maternal air which the youngest of women sometimes +assume to their lovers, as if the doll had suddenly changed sex, +and grown to man's estate. "You must go now, dear; for it may so +chance that father is considering my absence overmuch. You will +come again a' Wednesday, sweetheart; and you will not go to the +assemblies, nor visit Mistress Judith, nor take any girl pick-a- +back again on your black horse; and you will let me know when you +are hungry?" + +She turned her brown eyes lovingly, yet with a certain pretty +trouble in the brow, and such a searching, pleading inquiry in her +glance, that the captain kissed her at once. Then came the final +embrace, performed by the captain in a half-perfunctory, quiet +manner, with a due regard for the friable nature of part of his +provisions. Satisfying himself of the integrity of the eggs by +feeling for them in his pocket, he waved a military salute with the +other hand to Miss Thankful, and was gone. A few minutes later the +sound of his horse's hoofs rang sharply from the icy hillside. + +But, as he reached the summit, two horsemen wheeled suddenly from +the shadow of the roadside, and bade him halt. + +"Capt. Brewster, if this moon does not deceive me?" queried the +foremost stranger with grave civility. + +"The same. Major Van Zandt, I calculate?" returned Brewster +querulously. + +"Your calculation is quite right. I regret Capt. Brewster, that it +is my duty to inform you that you are under arrest." + +"By whose orders?" + +"The commander-in-chief's." + +"For what?" + +"Mutinous conduct, and disrespect of your superior officers." + +The sword that Capt. Brewster had drawn at the sudden appearance of +the strangers quivered for a moment in his strong hand. Then, +sharply striking it across the pommel of his saddle, he snapped it +in twain, and cast the pieces at the feet of the speaker. + +"Go on," he said doggedly. + +"Capt. Brewster," said Major Van Zandt, with infinite gravity, "it +is not for me to point out the danger to you of this outspoken +emotion, except practically in its effect upon the rations you have +in your pocket. If I mistake not, they have suffered equally with +your steel. Forward, march!" + +Capt. Brewster looked down, and then dropped to the rear, as the +discased yolks of Mistress Thankful's most precious gift slid +slowly and pensively over his horse's flanks to the ground. + + +II + + +Mistress Thankful remained at the wall until her lover had +disappeared. Then she turned, a mere lissom shadow in that +uncertain light, and glided under the eaves of the shed, and thence +from tree to tree of the orchard, lingering a moment under each as +a trout lingers in the shadow of the bank in passing a shallow, and +so reached the farmhouse and the kitchen door, where she entered. +Thence by a back staircase she slipped to her own bower, from whose +window half an hour before she had taken the signalling light. +This she lit again and placed upon a chest of drawers; and, taking +off her hood and a shapeless sleeveless mantle she had worn, went +to the mirror, and proceeded to re-adjust a high horn comb that had +been somewhat displaced by the captain's arm, and otherwise after +the fashion of her sex to remove all traces of a previous lover. +It may be here observed that a man is very apt to come from the +smallest encounter with his dulcinea distrait, bored, or shame- +faced; to forget that his cravat is awry, or that a long blond hair +is adhering to his button. But as to Mademoiselle--well, looking +at Miss Pussy's sleek paws and spotless face, would you ever know +that she had been at the cream-jug? + +Thankful was, I think, satisfied with her appearance. Small doubt +but she had reason for it. And yet her gown was a mere slip of +flowered chintz, gathered at the neck, and falling at an angle of +fifteen degrees to within an inch of a short petticoat of gray +flannel. But so surely is the complete mould of symmetry indicated +in the poise or line of any single member, that looking at the +erect carriage of her graceful brown head, or below to the curves +that were lost in her shapely ankles, or the little feet that hid +themselves in the broad-buckled shoes, you knew that the rest was +as genuine and beautiful. + +Mistress Thankful, after a pause, opened the door, and listened. +Then she softly slipped down the back staircase to the front hall. +It was dark; but the door of the "company-room," or parlor, was +faintly indicated by the light that streamed beneath it. She stood +still for a moment hesitatingly, when suddenly a hand grasped her +own, and half led, half dragged her, into the sitting-room +opposite. It was dark. There was a momentary fumbling for the +tinder-box and flint, a muttered oath over one or two impeding +articles of furniture, and Thankful laughed. And then the light +was lit; and her father, a gray wrinkled man of sixty, still +holding her hand, stood before her. + +"You have been out, mistress!" + +"I have," said Thankful. + +"And not alone," growled the old man angrily. + +"No," said Mistress Thankful, with a smile that began in the +corners of her brown eyes, ran down into the dimpled curves of her +mouth, and finally ended in the sudden revelation of her white +teeth,--"no, not alone." + +"With whom?" asked the old man, gradually weakening under her +strong, saucy presence. + +"Well, father," said Thankful, taking a seat on a table, and +swinging her little feet somewhat ostentatiously toward him, "I was +with Capt. Allan Brewster of the Connecticut Contingent." + +"That man?" + +"That man!" + +"I forbid you seeing him again." + +Thankful gripped the table with a hand on each side of her, to +emphasize the statement, and swinging her feet replied,-- + +"I shall see him as often as I like, father." + +"Thankful Blossom!" + +"Abner Blossom!" + +"I see you know not," said Mr. Blossom, abandoning the severely +paternal mandatory air for one of confidential disclosure, "I see +you know not his reputation. He is accused of inciting his +regiment to revolt,--of being a traitor to the cause." + +"And since when, Abner Blossom, have YOU felt such concern for the +cause? Since you refused to sell supplies to the Continental +commissary, except at double profits? since you told me you were +glad I had not polities like Mistress Ford--" + +"Hush!" said the father, motioning to the parlor. + +"Hush," echoed Thankful indignantly. "I won't be hushed! +Everybody says 'Hush' to me. The count says 'Hush!' Allan says +'Hush!' You say 'Hush!' I'm a-weary of this hushing. Ah, if +there was a man who didn't say it to me!" and Mistress Thankful +lifted her fine eyes to the ceiling. + +"You are unwise, Thankful,--foolish, indiscreet. That is why you +require much monition." + +Thankful swung her feet in silence for a few moments, then suddenly +leaped from the table, and, seizing the old man by the lapels of +his coat, fixed her eyes upon him, and said suspiciously. "Why did +you keep me from going in the company-room? Why did you bring me +in here?" + +Blossom senior was staggered for a moment. "Because, you know, the +count--" + +"And you were afraid the count should know I had a sweetheart? +Well, I'll go in and tell him now," she said, marching toward the +door. + +"Then, why did you not tell him when you slipped out an hour ago? +eh, lass?" queried the old man, grasping her hand. "But 'tis all +one, Thankful: 'twas not for him I stopped you. There is a young +spark with him,--ay, came even as you left, lass,--a likely young +gallant; and he and the count are jabbering away in their own +lingo, a kind of Italian, belike; eh, Thankful?" + +"I know not," she said thoughtfully. "Which way came the other?" +In fact, a fear that this young stranger might have witnessed the +captain's embrace began to creep over her. + +"From town, my lass." + +Thankful turned to her father as if she had been waiting a reply to +a long-asked question: "Well?" + +"Were it not well to put on a few furbelows and a tucker?" queried +the old man. "'Tis a gallant young spark; none of your country +folk." + +"No," said Thankful, with the promptness of a woman who was looking +her best, and knew it. And the old man, looking at her, accepted +her judgment, and without another word led her to the parlor door, +and, opening it, said briefly, "My daughter, Mistress Thankful +Blossom." + +With the opening of the door came the sound of earnest voices that +instantly ceased upon the appearance of Mistress Thankful. Two +gentlemen lolling before the fire arose instantly, and one came +forward with an air of familiar yet respectful recognition. + +"Nay, this is far too great happiness, Mistress Thankful," he said, +with a strongly marked foreign accent, and a still more strongly +marked foreign manner. "I have been in despair, and my friend +here, the Baron Pomposo, likewise." + +The slightest trace of a smile, and the swiftest of reproachful +glances, lit up the dark face of the baron as he bowed low in the +introduction. Thankful dropped the courtesy of the period,--i. e., +a duck, with semicircular sweep of the right foot forward. But the +right foot was so pretty, and the grace of the little figure so +perfect, that the baron raised his eyes from the foot to the face +in serious admiration. In the one rapid feminine glance she had +given him, she had seen that he was handsome; in the second, which +she could not help from his protracted silence, she saw that his +beauty centred in his girlish, half fawn-like dark eyes. + +"The baron," explained Mr. Blossom, rubbing his hands together as +if through mere friction he was trying to impart a warmth to the +reception which his hard face discountenanced,--"the baron visits +us under discouragement. He comes from far countries. It is the +custom of gentlefolk of--of foreign extraction to wander through +strange lands, commenting upon the habits and doings of the +peoples. He will find in Jersey," continued Mr. Blossom, +apparently appealing to Thankful, yet really evading her +contemptuous glance, "a hard-working yeomanry, ever ready to +welcome the stranger, and account to him, penny for penny, for all +his necessary expenditure; for which purpose, in these troublous +times, he will provide for himself gold or other moneys not +affected by these local disturbances." + +"He will find, good friend Blossom," said the baron in a rapid, +voluble way, utterly at variance with the soft, quiet gravity of +his eyes, "Beauty, Grace, Accom-plishment, and--eh--Santa Maria, +what shall I say?" He turned appealingly to the count. + +"Virtue," nodded the count. + +"Truly, Birtoo! all in the fair lady of thees countries. Ah, +believe me, honest friend Blossom, there is mooch more in thees +than in thoss!" + +So much of this speech was addressed to Mistress Thankful, that she +had to show at least one dimple in reply, albeit her brows were +slightly knit, and she had turned upon the speaker her honest, +questioning eyes. + +"And then the General Washington has been kind enough to offer his +protection," added the count. + +"Any fool--any one," supplemented Thankful hastily, with a slight +blush--"may have the general's pass, ay, and his good word. But +what of Mistress Prudence Bookstaver?--she that has a sweetheart in +Knyphausen's brigade, ay,--I warrant a Hessian, but of gentle +blood, as Mistress Prudence has often told me,--and, look you, all +her letters stopped by the general, ay, I warrant, read by my Lady +Washington too, as if 'twere HER fault that her lad was in arms +against Congress. Riddle me that, now!" + +"'Tis but prudence, lass," said Blossom, frowning on the girl. +"'Tis that she might disclose some movement of the army, tending to +defeat the enemy." + +"And why should she not try to save her lad from capture or +ambuscade such as befell the Hessian commissary with the provisions +that you--" + +Mr. Blossom, in an ostensible fatherly embrace, managed to pinch +Mistress Thankful sharply. "Hush, lass," he said with simulated +playfulness; "your tongue clacks like the Whippany mill.--My +daughter has small concern--'tis the manner of womenfolk--in +politics," he explained to his guests. "These dangersome days have +given her sore affliction by way of parting comrades of her +childhood, and others whom she has much affected. It has in some +sort soured her." + +Mr. Blossom would have recalled this speech as soon as it escaped +him, lest it should lead to a revelation from the truthful Mistress +Thankful of her relations with the Continental captain. But to his +astonishment, and, I may add, to my own, she showed nothing of that +disposition she had exhibited a few moments before. On the +contrary, she blushed slightly, and said nothing. + +And then the conversation changed,--upon the weather, the hard +winter, the prospects of the Cause, a criticism upon the commander- +in-chief's management of affairs, the attitude of Congress, etc., +between Mr. Blossom and the count; characterized, I hardly need +say, by that positiveness of opinion that distinguishes the +unprofessional. In another part of the room, it so chanced that +Mistress Thankful and the baron were talking about themselves; the +assembly balls; who was the prettiest woman in Morristown; and +whether Gen. Washington's attentions to Mistress Pyne were only +perfunctory gallantry, or what; and if Lady Washington's hair was +really gray; and if that young aide-de-camp, Major Van Zandt were +really in love with Lady or whether his attentions were only the +zeal of a subaltern,--in the midst of which a sudden gust of wind +shook the house; and Mr. Blossom, going to the front door, came +back with the announcement that it was snowing heavily. + +And indeed, within that past hour, to their astonished eyes the +whole face of nature had changed. The moon was gone, the sky +hidden in a blinding, whirling swarm of stinging flakes. The wind, +bitter and strong, had already fashioned white feathery drifts upon +the threshold, over the painted benches on the porch, and against +the door-posts. + +Mistress Thankful and the baron had walked to the rear door--the +baron with a slight tropical shudder--to view this meteorological +change. As Mistress Thankful looked over the snowy landscape, it +seemed to her that all record of her past experience had been +effaced: her very footprints of an hour before were lost; the gray +wall on which she leaned was white and spotless now; even the +familiar farm-shed looked dim and strange and ghostly. Had she +been there? had she seen the captain? was it all a fancy? She +scarcely knew. + +A sudden gust of wind closed the door behind them with a crash, and +sent Mistress Thankful, with a slight feminine scream, forward into +the outer darkness. But the baron caught her by the waist, and +saved her from Heaven knows what imaginable disaster; and the scene +ended in a half-hysterical laugh. But the wind then set upon them +both with a malevolent fury; and the baron was, I presume, obliged +to draw her closer to his side. + +They were alone, save for the presence of those mischievous +confederates, Nature and Opportunity. In the half-obscurity of the +storm she could not help turning her mischievous eyes on his. But +she was perhaps surprised to find them luminous, soft, and, as it +seemed to her at that moment, grave beyond the occasion. An +embarrassment utterly new and singular seized upon her; and when, +as she half feared yet half expected, he bent down and pressed his +lips to hers, she was for a moment powerless. But in the next +instant she boxed his ears sharply, and vanished in the darkness. +When Mr. Blossom opened the door to the baron he was surprised to +find that gentleman alone, and still more surprised to find, when +they re-entered the house, to see Mistress Thankful enter at the +same moment, demurely, from the front door. + +When Mr. Blossom knocked at his daughter's door the next morning it +opened upon her completely dressed, but withal somewhat pale, and, +if the truth must be told, a little surly. + +"And you were stirring so early, Thankful," he said: "'twould have +been but decent to have bidden God-speed to the guests, especially +the baron, who seemed much concerned at your absence." + +Miss Thankful blushed slightly, but answered with savage celerity, +"And since when is it necessary that I should dance attendance upon +every foreign jack-in-the-box that may lie at the house?" + +"He has shown great courtesy to you, mistress, and is a gentleman." + +"Courtesy, indeed!" said Mistress Thankful. + +"He has not presumed?" said Mr. Blossom suddenly, bringing his cold +gray eyes to bear upon his daughter's. + +"No, no," said Thankful hurriedly, flaming a bright scarlet; "but-- +nothing. But what have you there? a letter?" + +"Ay,--from the captain, I warrant," said Mr. Blossom, handing her a +three-cornered bit of paper: "'twas left here by a camp-follower. +Thankful," he continued, with a meaning glance, "you will heed my +counsel in season. The captain is not meet for such as you." + +Thankful suddenly grew pale and contemptuous again as she snatched +the letter from his hand. When his retiring footsteps were lost on +the stairs she regained her color, and opened the letter. It was +slovenly written, grievously misspelled, and read as follows:-- + + +"SWEETHEART: A tyranous Act, begotten in Envy and Jealousie, keeps +me here a prisoner. Last night I was Basely arrested by Servile +Hands for that Freedom of Thought and Expression for which I have +already Sacrifized so much--aye all that Man hath but Love and +Honour. But the End is Near. When for the Maintenance of Power, +the Liberties of the Peoples are subdued by Martial Supremacy and +the Dictates of Ambition the State is Lost. I lie in Vile Bondage +here in Morristown under charge of Disrespeck--me that a +twelvemonth past left a home and Respectable Connexions to serve my +Country. Believe me still your own Love, albeit in the Power of +Tyrants and condemned it may be to the scaffold. + +"The Messenger is Trustworthy and will speed safely to me such as +you may deliver unto him. The Provender sanktified by your Hands +and made precious by yr. Love was wrested from me by Servil Hands +and the Eggs, Sweetheart, were somewhat Addled. The Bacon is, +methinks by this time on the Table of the Comr-in-Chief. Such is +Tyranny and Ambition. Sweetheart, farewell, for the present. + +ALLAN." + + +Mistress Thankful read this composition once, twice, and then tore +it up. Then, reflecting that it was the first letter of her +lover's that she had not kept, she tried to put together again the +torn fragments, but vainly, and then in a pet, new to her, cast +them from the window. During the rest of the day she was +considerably distraite, and even manifested more temper than she +was wont to do; and later, when her father rode away on his daily +visit to Morristown, she felt strangely relieved. By noon the snow +ceased, or rather turned into a driving sleet that again in turn +gave way to rain. By this time she became absorbed in her +household duties,--in which she was usually skilful,--and in her +own thoughts that to-day had a novelty in their meaning. In the +midst of this, at about dark, her room being in the rear of the +house, she was perhaps unmindful of the trampling of horse without, +or the sound of voices in the hall below. Neither was uncommon at +that time. Although protected by the Continental army from forage +or the rudeness of soldiery, the Blossom farm had always been a +halting-place for passing troopers, commissary teamsters, and +reconnoitring officers. Gen. Sullivan and Col. Hamilton had +watered their horses at its broad, substantial wayside trough, and +sat in the shade of its porch. Miss Thankful was only awakened +from her daydream by the entrance of the negro farm-hand, Caesar. + +"Fo' God, Missy Thankful, them sogers is g'wine into camp in the +road, I reckon, for they's jest makin' theysevs free afo' the +house, and they's an officer in the company-room with his spurs +cocked on the table, readin' a book." + +A quick flame leaped into Thankful's cheek, and her pretty brows +knit themselves over darkening eyes. She arose from her work no +longer the moody girl, but an indignant goddess, and, pushing the +servant aside, swept down the stairs, and threw open the door. + +An officer sitting by the fire in an easy, lounging attitude that +justified the servant's criticism, arose instantly with an air of +evident embarrassment and surprise that was, however, as quickly +dominated and controlled by a gentleman's breeding. + +"I beg your pardon," he said, with a deep inclination of his +handsome head, "but I had no idea that there was any member of this +household at home--at least, a lady." He hesitated a moment, +catching in the raising of her brown-fringed lids a sudden +revelation of her beauty, and partly losing his composure. "I am +Major Van Zandt: I have the honor of addressing--" + +"Thankful Blossom," said Thankful a little proudly, divining with a +woman's swift instinct the cause of the major's hesitation. But +her triumph was checked by a new embarrassment visible in the face +of the officer at the mention of her name. + +"Thankful Blossom," repeated the officer quickly. "You are, then, +the daughter of Abner Blossom?" + +"Certainly," said Thankful, turning her inquiring eyes upon him. +"He will be here betimes. He has gone only to Morristown." In a +new fear that had taken possession of her, her questioning eyes +asked, "Has he not?" + +The officer, answering her eyes rather than her lips, came toward +her gravely. "He will not return to-day, Mistress Thankful, nor +perhaps even to-morrow. He is--a prisoner." + +Thankful opened her brown eyes aggressively on the major. "A +prisoner--for what?" + +"For aiding and giving comfort to the enemy, and for harboring +spies," replied the major with military curtness. + +Mistress Thankful's cheek flushed slightly at the last sentence: a +recollection of the scene on the porch and the baron's stolen kiss +flashed across her, and for a moment she looked as guilty as if the +man before her had been a witness to the deed. He saw it, and +misinterpreted her confusion. + +"Belike, then," said Mistress Thankful, slightly raising her voice, +and standing squarely before the major, "belike, then, I should be +a prisoner too; for the guests of this house, if they be spies, +were MY guests, and, as my father's daughter, I was their hostess; +ay, man, and right glad to be the hostess of such gallant +gentlemen,--gentlemen, I warrant, too fine to insult a defenceless +girl; gentlemen spies that did not cock their boots on the table, +or turn an honest farmer's house into a tap-room." + +An expression of half pain, half amusement, covered the face of the +major, but he made no other reply than by a profound and graceful +bow. Courteous and deprecatory as it was, it apparently +exasperated Mistress Thankful only the more. + +"And pray who are these spies, and who is the informer?" said +Mistress Thankful, facing the soldier, with one hand truculently +placed on her flexible hip, and the other slipped behind her. +"Methinks 'tis only honest we should know when and how we have +entertained both." + +"Your father, Mistress Thankful," said Major Van Zandt gravely, +"has long been suspected of favoring the enemy; but it has been the +policy of the commander-in-chief to overlook the political +preferences of non-combatants, and to strive to win their +allegiance to the good cause by liberal privileges. But when it +was lately discovered that two strangers, although bearing a pass +from him, have been frequenters of this house under fictitious +names--" + +"You mean Count Ferdinand and the Baron Pomposo," said Thankful +quickly,--"two honest gentlefolk; and if they choose to pay their +devoirs to a lass--although, perhaps, not a quality lady, yet an +honest girl--" + +"Dear Mistress Thankful," said the major with a profound bow and +smile, that, spite of its courtesy, drove Thankful to the verge of +wrathful hysterics, "if you establish that fact,--and, from this +slight acquaintance with your charms, I doubt not you will,--your +father is safe from further inquiry or detention. The commander- +in-chief is a gentleman who has never underrated the influence of +your sex, nor held himself averse to its fascinations." + +"What is the name of this informer?" broke in Mistress Thankful +angrily. "Who is it that has dared--" + +"It is but king's evidence, mayhap, Mistress Thankful; for the +informer is himself under arrest. It is on the information of +Capt. Allan Brewster of the Connecticut Contingent." + +Mistress Thankful whitened, then flushed, and then whitened again. +Then she stood up to the major. + +"It's a lie,--a cowardly lie!" + +Major Van Zandt bowed. Mistress Thankful flew up stairs, and in +another moment swept back again into the room in riding hat and +habit. + +"I suppose I can go and see--my father," she said, without lifting +her eyes to the officer. + +"You are free as air, Mistress Thankful. My orders and +instructions, far from implicating you in your father's offences, +do not even suggest your existence. Let me help you to your +horse." + +The girl did not reply. During that brief interval, however, +Caesar had saddled her white mare, and brought it to the door. +Mistress Thankful, disdaining the offered hand of the major, sprang +to the saddle. + +The major still held the reins. "One moment, Mistress Thankful." + +"Let me go!" she said, with suppressed passion. + +"One moment, I beg." + +His hand still held her bridle-rein. The mare reared, nearly +upsetting her. Crimson with rage and mortification, she raised her +riding-whip, and laid it smartly over the face of the man before +her. + +He dropped the rein instantly. Then he raised to her a face calm +and colorless, but for a red line extending from his eyebrow to his +chin, and said quietly,-- + +"I had no desire to detain you. I only wished to say that when you +see Gen. Washington I know you will be just enough to tell him that +Major Van Zandt knew nothing of your wrongs, or even your presence +here, until you presented them, and that since then he has treated +you as became an officer and a gentleman." + +Yet even as he spoke she was gone. At the moment that her +fluttering skirt swept in a furious gallop down the hillside, the +major turned, and re-entered the house. The few lounging troopers +who were witnesses of the scene prudently turned their eyes from +the white face and blazing eyes of their officer as he strode by +them. Nevertheless, when the door closed behind him, contemporary +criticism broke out:-- + +"'Tis a Tory jade, vexed that she cannot befool the major as she +has the captain," muttered Sergeant Tibbitts. + +"And going to try her tricks on the general," added Private Hicks. + +Howbeit both these critics may have been wrong. For as Mistress +Thankful thundered down the Morristown road she thought of many +things. She thought of her sweetheart Allan, a prisoner, and +pining for HER help and HER solicitude; and yet--how dared he--if +he HAD really betrayed or misjudged her! And then she thought +bitterly of the count and the baron, and burned to face the latter, +and in some vague way charge the stolen kiss upon him as the cause +of all her shame and mortification. And lastly she thought of her +father, and began to hate everybody. But above all and through +all, in her vague fears for her father, in her passionate +indignation against the baron, in her fretful impatience of Allan, +one thing was ever dominant and obtrusive; one thing she tried to +put away, but could not,--the handsome, colorless face of Major Van +Zandt, with the red welt of her riding-whip overlying its cold +outlines. + + +III + + +The rising wind, which had ridden much faster than Mistress +Thankful, had increased to a gale by the time it reached +Morristown. It swept through the leafless maples, and rattled the +dry bones of the elms. It whistled through the quiet Presbyterian +churchyard, as if trying to arouse the sleepers it had known in +days gone by. It shook the blank, lustreless windows of the +Assembly Rooms over the Freemasons' Tavern, and wrought in their +gusty curtains moving shadows of those amply petticoated dames and +tightly hosed cavaliers who had swung in "Sir Roger," or jigged in +"Money Musk," the night before. + +But I fancy it was around the isolated "Ford Mansion," better known +as the "headquarters," that the wind wreaked its grotesque rage. +It howled under its scant eaves, it sang under its bleak porch, it +tweaked the peak of its front gable, it whistled through every +chink and cranny of its square, solid, unpicturesque structure. +Situated on a hillside that descended rapidly to the Whippany +River, every summer zephyr that whispered through the porches of +the Morristown farm-houses charged as a stiff breeze upon the +swinging half doors and windows of the "Ford Mansion"; every wintry +wind became a gale that threatened its security. The sentry who +paced before its front porch knew from experience when to linger +under its lee, and adjust his threadbare outer coat to the bitter +north wind. + +Within the house something of this cheerlessness prevailed. It had +an ascetic gloom, which the scant firelight of the reception-room, +and the dying embers on the dining-room hearth, failed to +dissipate. The central hall was broad, and furnished plainly with +a few rush-bottomed chairs, on one of which half dozed a black +body-servant of the commander-in-chief. Two officers in the +dining-room, drawn close by the chimney-corner, chatted in +undertones, as if mindful that the door of the drawing-room was +open, and their voices might break in upon its sacred privacy. The +swinging light in the hall partly illuminated it, or rather glanced +gloomily from the black polished furniture, the lustreless chairs, +the quaint cabinet, the silent spinet, the skeleton-legged centre- +table, and finally upon the motionless figure of a man seated by +the fire. + +It was a figure since so well known to the civilized world, since +so celebrated in print and painting, as to need no description +here. Its rare combination of gentle dignity with profound force, +of a set resoluteness of purpose with a philosophical patience, +have been so frequently delivered to a people not particularly +remarkable for these qualities, that I fear it has too often +provoked a spirit of playful aggression, in which the deeper +underlying meaning was forgotten. So let me add that in manner, +physical equipoise, and even in the mere details of dress, this +figure indicated a certain aristocratic exclusiveness. It was the +presentment of a king,--a king who by the irony of circumstances +was just then waging war against all kingship; a ruler of men, who +just then was fighting for the right of these men to govern +themselves, but whom by his own inherent right he dominated. From +the crown of his powdered head to the silver buckle of his shoe he +was so royal that it was not strange that his brother George of +England and Hanover--ruling by accident, otherwise impiously known +as the "grace of God"--could find no better way of resisting his +power than by calling him "Mr. Washington." + +The sound of horses' hoofs, the formal challenge of sentry, the +grave questioning of the officer of the guard, followed by +footsteps upon the porch, did not apparently disturb his +meditation. Nor did the opening of the outer door, and a charge of +cold air into the hall that invaded even the privacy of the +reception-room, and brightened the dying embers on the hearth, stir +his calm pre-occupation. But an instant later there was the +distinct rustle of a feminine skirt in the hall, a hurried +whispering of men's voices, and then the sudden apparition of a +smooth, fresh-faced young officer over the shoulder of the +unconscious figure. + +"I beg your pardon, general," said the officer doubtingly, "but--" + +"You are not intruding, Col. Hamilton," said the general quietly. + +"There is a young lady without who wishes an audience of your +Excellency. 'Tis Mistress Thankful Blossom,--the daughter of Abner +Blossom, charged with treasonous practice and favoring the enemy, +now in the guard-house at Morristown." + +"Thankful Blossom?" repeated the general interrogatively. + +"Your Excellency doubtless remembers a little provincial beauty and +a famous toast of the country-side,--the Cressida of our Morristown +epic, who led our gallant. Connecticut captain astray--" + +"You have the advantages, besides the better memory of a younger +man, colonel," said Washington, with a playful smile that slightly +reddened the cheek of his aide-de-camp. "Yet I think I HAVE heard +of this phenomenon. By all means, admit her--and her escort." + +"She is alone, general," responded the subordinate. + +"Then the more reason why we should be polite," returned +Washington, for the first time altering his easy posture, rising to +his feet, and lightly clasping his ruffled hands before him. "We +must not keep her waiting. Give her access, my dear colonel, at +once; and even as she came,--ALONE." + +The aide-de-camp bowed and withdrew. In another moment the half- +opened door swung wide to Mistress Thankful Blossom. + +She was so beautiful in her simple riding-dress, so quaint and +original in that very beauty, and, above all, so teeming with a +certain vital earnestness of purpose just positive and audacious +enough to set off that beauty, that the grave gentleman before her +did not content himself with the usual formal inclination of +courtesy, but actually advanced, and, taking her cold little hand +in his, graciously led her to the chair he had just vacated. + +"Even if your name were not known to me, Mistress Thankful," said +the commander-in-chief, looking down upon her with grave +politeness, "nature has, methinks, spared you the necessity of any +introduction to the courtesy of a gentleman. But how can I +especially serve you?" + +Alack! the blaze of Mistress Thankful's brown eyes had become +somewhat dimmed in the grave half-lights of the room, in the +graver, deeper dignity of the erect, soldier-like figure before +her. The bright color born of the tempest within and without had +somehow faded from her cheek; the sauciness begotten from bullying +her horse in the last half-hour's rapid ride was so subdued by the +actual presence of the man she had come to bully, that I fear she +had to use all her self-control to keep down her inclination to +whimper, and to keep back the tears, that, oddly enough, rose to +her sweet eyes as she lifted them to the quietly critical yet +placid glance of her interlocutor. + +"I can readily conceive the motive of this visit, Miss Thankful," +continued Washington, with a certain dignified kindliness that was +more reassuring than the formal gallantry of the period; "and it +is, I protest, to your credit. A father's welfare, however erring +and weak that father may be, is most seemly in a maiden--" + +Thankful's eyes flashed again as she rose to her feet. Her upper +lip, that had a moment before trembled in a pretty infantine +distress, now stiffened and curled as she confronted the dignified +figure before her. "It is not of my father I would speak," she +said saucily: "I did not ride here alone to-night, in this weather, +to talk of HIM; I warrant HE can speak for himself. I came here to +speak of myself, of lies--ay, LIES told of me, a poor girl; ay, of +cowardly gossip about me and my sweetheart, Capt. Brewster, now +confined in prison because he hath loved me, a lass without +polities or adherence to the cause--as if 'twere necessary every +lad should ask the confidence or permission of yourself or, belike, +my Lady Washington, in his preferences." + +She paused a moment, out of breath. With a woman's quickness of +intuition she saw the change in Washington's face,--saw a certain +cold severity overshadowing it. With a woman's fateful +persistency--a persistency which I humbly suggest might, on +occasion, be honorably copied by our more politic sex--she went on +to say what was in her, even if she were obliged, with a woman's +honorable inconsistency, to unsay it an hour or two later; an +inconsistency which I also humbly protest might be as honorably +imitated by us--on occasion. + +"It has been said," said Thankful Blossom quickly, "that my father +has given entertainment knowingly to two spies,--two spies that, +begging your Excellency's pardon, and the pardon of Congress, I +know only as two honorable gentlemen who have as honorably tendered +me their affections. It is said, and basely and most falsely too, +that my sweetheart, Capt. Allan Brewster, has lodged this +information. I have ridden here to deny it. I have ridden here to +demand of you that an honest woman's reputation shall not be +sacrificed to the interests of politics; that a prying mob of +ragamuffins shall not be sent to an honest farmer's house to spy +and spy--and turn a poor girl out of doors that they might do it. +'Tis shameful, so it is; there! 'tis most scandalous, so it is: +there, now! Spies, indeed! what are THEY, pray?" + +In the indignation which the recollection of her wrongs had slowly +gathered in her, from the beginning of this speech, she had +advanced her face, rosy with courage, and beautiful in its +impertinence, within a few inches of the dignified features and +quiet gray eyes of the great commander. To her utter stupefaction, +he bent his head and kissed her, with a grave benignity, full on +the centre of her audacious forehead. + +"Be seated, I beg, Mistress Blossom," he said, taking her cold hand +in his, and quietly replacing her in the unoccupied chair. "Be +seated, I beg, and give me, if you can, your attention for a +moment. The officer intrusted with the ungracious task of +occupying your father's house is a member of my military family, +and a gentleman. If he has so far forgotten himself--if he has so +far disgraced himself and me as--" + +"No! no!" uttered Thankful, with feverish alacrity, "the gentleman +was most considerate. On the contrary--mayhap--I"--she hesitated, +and then came to a full stop, with a heightened color, as a vivid +recollection of that gentleman's face, with the mark of her riding- +whip lying across it, rose before her. + +"I was about to say that Major Van Zandt, as a gentleman, has known +how to fully excuse the natural impulses of a daughter," continued +Washington, with a look of perfect understanding; "but let me now +satisfy you on another point, where it would seem we greatly +differ." + +He walked to the door, and summoned his servant, to whom he gave an +order. In another moment the fresh-faced young officer who had at +first admitted her re-appeared with a file of official papers. He +glanced slyly at Thankful Blossom's face with an amused look, as if +he had already heard the colloquy between her and his superior +officer, and had appreciated that which neither of the earnest +actors in the scene had themselves felt,--a certain sense of humor +in the situation. + +Howbeit, standing before them, Col. Hamilton gravely turned over +the file of papers. Thankful bit her lips in embarrassment. A +slight feeling of awe, and a presentiment of some fast-coming +shame; a new and strange consciousness of herself, her +surroundings, of the dignity of the two men before her; an uneasy +feeling of the presence of two ladies who had in some mysterious +way entered the room from another door, and who seemed to be +intently regarding her from afar with a curiosity as if she were +some strange animal; and a wild premonition that her whole future +life and happiness depended upon the events of the next few +moments,--so took possession of her, that the brave girl trembled +for a moment in her isolation and loneliness. In another instant +Col. Hamilton, speaking to his superior, but looking obviously at +one of the ladies who had entered, handed a paper to Washington, +and said, "Here are the charges." + +"Read them," said the general coldly. + +Col. Hamilton, with a manifest consciousness of another hearer than +Mistress Blossom and his general, read the paper. It was couched +in phrases of military and legal precision, and related briefly, +that upon the certain and personal knowledge of the writer, Abner +Blossom of the "Blossom Farm" was in the habit of entertaining two +gentlemen, namely, the "Count Ferdinand" and the "Baron Pomposo," +suspected enemies of the cause, and possible traitors to the +Continental army. It was signed by Allan Brewster, late captain in +the Connecticut Contingent. + +As Col. Hamilton exhibited the signature, Thankful Blossom had no +difficulty in recognizing the familiar bad hand and equally +familiar mis-spelling of her lover. + +She rose to her feet. With eyes that showed her present trouble +and perplexity as frankly as they had a moment before blazed with +her indignation, she met, one by one, the glances of the group who +now seemed to be closing round her. Yet with a woman's instinct +she felt, I am constrained to say, more unfriendliness in the +silent presence of the two women than in the possible outspoken +criticism of our much-abused sex. + +"Of course," said a voice which Thankful at once, by a woman's +unerring instinct, recognized as the elder of the two ladies, and +the legitimate keeper of the conscience of some one of the men who +were present,--"of course Mistress Thankful will be able to elect +which of her lovers among her country's enemies she will be able to +cling to for support in her present emergency. She does not seem +to have been so special in her favors as to have positively +excluded any one." + +"At least, dear Lady Washington, she will not give it to the man +who has proven a traitor to HER," said the younger woman +impulsively. "That is--I beg your ladyship's pardon"--she +hesitated, observing in the dead silence that ensued that the two +superior male beings present looked at each other in lofty +astonishment. + +"He that is trait'rous to his country," said Lady Washington +coldly, "is apt to be trait'rous elsewhere." + +"'Twere as honest to say that he that was trait'rous to his king +was trait'rous to his country," said Mistress Thankful with sudden +audacity, bending her knit brows on Lady Washington. But that lady +turned dignifiedly away, and Mistress Thankful again faced the +general. + +"I ask your pardon," she said proudly, "for troubling you with my +wrongs. But it seems to me that even if another and a greater +wrong were done me by my sweetheart, through jealousy, it would not +justify this accusation against me, even though," she added, +darting a wicked glance at the placid brocaded back of Lady +Washington, "even though that accusation came from one who knows +that jealousy may belong to the wife of a patriot as well as a +traitor." She was herself again after this speech, although her +face was white with the blow she had taken and returned. + +Col. Hamilton passed his hand across his mouth, and coughed +slightly. Gen. Washington, standing by the fire with an impassive +face, turned to Thankful gravely:-- + +"You are forgetting, Mistress Thankful, that you have not told me +how I can serve you. It cannot be that you are still concerned in +Capt. Brewster, who has given evidence against your other--FRIENDS, +and tacitly against YOU. Nor can it be on their account, for I +regret to say they are still free and unknown. If you come with +any information exculpating them, and showing they are not spies or +hostile to the cause, your father's release shall be certain and +speedy. Let me ask you a single question: Why do you believe them +honest?" + +"Because," said Mistress Thankful, "they were--were--gentlemen." + +"Many spies have been of excellent family, good address, and fair +talents," said Washington gravely; "but you have, mayhap, some +other reason." + +"Because they talked only to ME," said Mistress Thankful, blushing +mightily; "because they preferred my company to father's; because"-- +she hesitated a moment--"because they spoke not of politics, but-- +of--that which lads mainly talk of--and--and,"--here she broke down +a little,--"and the baron I only saw once, but he"--here she broke +down utterly--"I know they weren't spies: there, now!" + +"I must ask you something more," said Washington, with grave +kindness: "whether you give me the information or not, you will +consider, that, if what you believe is true, it cannot in any way +injure the gentlemen you speak of; while, on the other hand, it may +relieve your father of suspicion. Will you give to Col. Hamilton, +my secretary, a full description of them,--that fuller description +which Capt. Brewster, for reasons best known to yourself, was +unable to give?" + +Mistress Thankful hesitated for a moment, and then, with one of her +truthful glances at the commander-in-chief, began a detailed +account of the outward semblance of the count. Why she began with +him, I am unable to say; but possibly it was because it was easier, +for when she came to describe the baron, she was, I regret to say, +somewhat vague and figurative. Not so vague, however, but that +Col. Hamilton suddenly started up with a look at his chief, who +instantly checked it with a gesture of his ruffled hand. + +"I thank you. Mistress Thankful," he said quite impassively, "but +did this other gentleman, this baron--" + +"Pomposo," said Thankful proudly. A titter originated in the group +of ladies by the window, and became visible on the fresh face of +Col. Hamilton; but the dignified color of Washington's countenance +was unmoved. + +"May I ask if the baron made an honorable tender of his affections +to you," he continued, with respectful gravity,--"if his attentions +were known to your father, and were such as honest Mistress Blossom +could receive?" + +"Father introduced him to me, and wanted me to be kind to him, He-- +he kissed me, and I slapped his face," said Thankful quickly, with +cheeks as red, I warrant, as the baron's might have been. + +The moment the words had escaped her truthful lips, she would have +given her life to recall them. To her astonishment, however, Col. +Hamilton laughed outright, and the ladies turned and approached +her, but were checked by a slight gesture from the otherwise +impassive figure of the general. + +"It is possible, Mistress Thankful," he resumed, with undisturbed +composure, "that one at least of these gentlemen may be known to +us, and that your instincts may be correct. At least rest assured +that we shall fully inquire into it, and that your father shall +have the benefit of that inquiry." + +"I thank your Excellency," said Thankful, still reddening under the +contemplation of her own late frankness, and retreating toward the +door. "I--think--I--must--go--now. It is late, and I have far to +ride." + +To her surprise, however, Washington stepped forward, and, again +taking her hands in his, said with a grave smile, "For that very +reason, if for none other, you must be our guest to-night, Mistress +Thankful Blossom. We still retain our Virginian ideas of +hospitality, and are tyrannous enough to make strangers conform to +them, even though we have but perchance the poorest of +entertainment to offer them. Lady Washington will not permit +Mistress Thankful Blossom to leave her roof to-night until she has +partaken of her courtesy as well as her counsel." + +"Mistress Thankful Blossom will make us believe that she has at +least in so far trusted our desire to serve her justly, by +accepting our poor hospitality for a single night," said Lady +Washington, with a stately courtesy. + +Thankful Blossom still stood irresolutely at the door. But the +next moment a pair of youthful arms encircled her; and the younger +gentlewoman, looking into her brown eyes with an honest frankness +equal to her own, said caressingly, "Dear Mistress Thankful, though +I am but a guest in her ladyship's house, let me, I pray you, add +my voice to hers. I am Mistress Schuyler of Albany, at your +service, Mistress Thankful, as Col. Hamilton here will bear me +witness, did I need any interpreter to your honest heart. Believe +me, dear Mistress Thankful, I sympathize with you, and only beg you +to give me an opportunity to-night to serve you. You will stay, I +know, and you will stay with me; and we shall talk over the +faithlessness of that over-jealous Yankee captain who has proved +himself, I doubt not, as unworthy of YOU as he is of his country." + +Hateful to Thankful as was the idea of being commiserated, she +nevertheless could not resist the gentle courtesy and gracious +sympathy of Miss Schuyler. Besides, it must be confessed that for +the first time in her life she felt a doubt of the power of her own +independence, and a strange fascination for this young gentlewoman +whose arms were around her, who could so thoroughly sympathize with +her, and yet allow herself to be snubbed by Lady Washington. + +"You have a mother, I doubt not?" said Thankful, raising her +questioning eyes to Miss Schuyler. + +Irrelevant as this question seemed to the two gentlemen, Miss +Schuyler answered it with feminine intuition: "And you, dear +Mistress Thankful--" + +"Have none," said Thankful; and here, I regret to say, she +whimpered slightly, at which Miss Schuyler, with tears in her own +fine eyes, bent her head suddenly to Thankful's ear, put her arm +about the waist of the pretty stranger, and then, to the +astonishment of Col. Hamilton, quietly swept her out of the august +presence. + +When the door had closed upon them, Col. Hamilton turned half- +smilingly, half-inquiringly, to his chief. Washington returned his +glance kindly but gravely, and then said quietly,-- + +"If your suspicions jump with mine, colonel, I need not remind you +that it is a matter so delicate that it would be as well if you +locked it in your own breast for the present; at least, that you +should not intimate to the gentleman whom you may have suspected, +aught that has passed this evening." + +"As you will, general," said the subaltern respectfully; "but may I +ask"--he hesitated--"if you believe that anything more than a +passing fancy for a pretty girl--" + +"When I asked your silence, colonel," interrupted Washington +kindly, laying his hand upon the shoulder of the younger man, "it +was because I thought the matter sufficiently momentous to claim my +own private and especial attention." + +"I ask your Excellency's pardon," said the young man, reddening +through his fresh complexion like a girl; "I only meant--" + +"That you would ask to be relieved to-night," interrupted +Washington, with a benign smile, "forasmuch as you wished the more +to show entertainment to our dear friend Miss Schuyler, and her +guest; a wayward girl, colonel, but, methinks, an honest one. +Treat her of your own quality, colonel, but discreetly, and not too +kindly, lest we have Mistress Schuyler, another injured damsel, on +our hands;" and with a half playful gesture peculiar to the man, +and yet not inconsistent with his dignity, he half led, half pushed +his youthful secretary from the room. + +When the door had closed upon the colonel, Lady Washington rustled +toward her husband, who stood still, quiet and passive, on the +hearthstone. + +"You surely see in this escapade nothing of political intrigue--no +treachery?" she said hastily. + +"No," said Washington quietly. + +"Nothing more than an idle, wanton intrigue with a foolish, vain +country girl?" + +"Pardon me, my lady," said Washington gravely. "I doubt not we may +misjudge her. 'Tis no common rustic lass that can thus stir the +country side. 'Twere an insult to your sex to believe it. It is +not yet sure that she has not captured even so high game as she has +named. If she has, it would add another interest to a treaty of +comity and alliance." + +"That creature!" said Lady Washington,--"that light-o'-love with +her Connecticut captain lover! Pardon me, but this is +preposterous;" and with a stiff courtesy she swept from the room, +leaving the central figure of history--as such central figures are +apt to be left--alone. + +Later in the evening Mistress Schuyler so far subdued the tears and +emotions of Thankful, that she was enabled to dry her eyes, and re- +arrange her brown hair in the quaint little mirror in Mistress +Schuyler's chamber; Mistress Schuyler herself lending a touch and +suggestion here and there, after the secret freemasonry of her sex. +"You are well rid of this forsworn captain, dear Mistress Thankful; +and methinks that with hair as beautiful as yours, the new style of +wearing it, though a modish frivolity, is most becoming. I assure +you 'tis much affected in New York and Philadelphia,--drawn +straight back from the forehead, after this manner, as you see." + +The result was, that an hour later Mistress Schuyler and Mistress +Blossom presented themselves to Col. Hamilton in the reception- +room, with a certain freshness and elaboration of toilet that not +only quite shamed the young officer's affaire negligence, but +caused him to open his eyes in astonishment. "Perhaps she would +rather be alone, that she might indulge her grief," he said +doubtingly, in an aside to Miss Schuyler, "rather than appear in +company." + +"Nonsense," quoth Mistress Schuyler. "Is a young woman to mope and +sigh because her lover proves false?" + +"But her father is a prisoner," said Hamilton in amazement. + +"Can you look me in the face," said Mistress Schuyler +mischievously, "and tell me that you don't know that in twenty-four +hours her father will be cleared of these charges? Nonsense! Do +you think I have no eyes in my head? Do you think I misread the +general's face and your own?" + +"But, my dear girl," said the officer in alarm. + +"Oh! I told her so, but not WHY," responded Miss Schuyler with a +wicked look in her dark eyes, "though I had warrant enough to do +so, to serve you for keeping a secret from ME!" + +And with this Parthian shot she returned to Mistress Thankful, who, +with her face pressed against the window, was looking out on the +moonlit slope beside the Whippany River. + +For, by one of those freaks peculiar to the American springtide, +the weather had again marvellously changed. The rain had ceased, +and the ground was covered with an icing of sleet and snow, that +now glittered under a clear sky and a brilliant moon. The +northeast wind that shook the loose sashes of the windows had +transformed each dripping tree and shrub to icy stalactites that +silvered under the moon's cold touch. + +"'Tis a beautiful sight, ladies," said a bluff, hearty, middle-aged +man, joining the group by the window. "But God send the spring to +us quickly, and spare us any more such cruel changes! My lady moon +looks fine enough, glittering in yonder treetops; but I doubt not +she looks down upon many a poor fellow shivering under his tattered +blankets in the camp beyond. Had ye seen the Connecticut +tatterdemalions file by last night, with arms reversed, showing +their teeth at his Excellency, and yet not daring to bite; had ye +watched these faint-hearts, these doubting Thomases, ripe for +rebellion against his Excellency, against the cause, but chiefly +against the weather,--ye would pray for a thaw that would melt the +hearts of these men as it would these stubborn fields around us. +Two weeks more of such weather would raise up not one Allan +Brewster, but a dozen such malcontent puppies ripe for a drum-head +court-martial." + +"Yet 'tis a fine night, Gen. Sullivan," said Col. Hamilton, sharply +nudging the ribs of his superior officer with his elbow. "There +would be little trouble on such a night, I fancy, to track our +ghostly visitant." Both of the ladies becoming interested, and +Col. Hamilton having thus adroitly turned the flank of his superior +officer, he went on, "You should know that the camp, and indeed the +whole locality here, is said to be haunted by the apparition of a +gray-coated figure, whose face is muffled and hidden in his collar, +but who has the password pat to his lips, and whose identity hath +baffled the sentries. This figure, it is said, forasmuch as it has +been seen just before an assault, an attack, or some tribulation of +the army, is believed by many to be the genius or guardian spirit +of the cause, and, as such, has incited sentries and guards to +greater vigilance, and has to some seemed a premonition of +disaster. Before the last outbreak of the Connecticut militia, +Master Graycoat haunted the outskirts of the weather-beaten and +bedraggled camp, and, I doubt not, saw much of that preparation +that sent that regiment of faint-hearted onion-gatherers to flaunt +their woes and their wrongs in the face of the general himself." + +Here Col. Hamilton, in turn, received a slight nudge from Mistress +Schuyler, and ended his speech somewhat abruptly. + +Mistress Thankful was not unmindful of both these allusions to her +faithless lover, but only a consciousness of mortification and +wounded pride was awakened by them. In fact, during the first +tempest of her indignation at his arrest, still later at the arrest +of her father, and finally at the discovery of his perfidy to her, +she had forgotten that he was her lover; she had forgotten her +previous tenderness toward him; and, now that her fire and +indignation were spent, only a sense of numbness and vacancy +remained. All that had gone before seemed not something to be +regretted as her own act, but rather as the act of another Thankful +Blossom, who had been lost that night in the snow-storm: she felt +she had become, within the last twenty-four hours, not perhaps +ANOTHER woman, but for the first time a WOMEN. + +Yet it was singular that she felt more confused when, a few moments +later, the conversation turned upon Major Van Zandt: it was still +more singular that she even felt considerably frightened at that +confusion. Finally she found herself listening with alternate +irritability, shame, and curiosity, to praises of that gentleman, +of his courage, his devotion, and his personal graces. For one +wild moment Thankful felt like throwing herself on the breast of +Mistress Schuyler, and confessing her rudeness to the major; but a +conviction that Mistress Schuyler would share that secret with Col. +Hamilton, that Major Van Zandt might not like that revelation, and, +oddly enough associated with this, a feeling of unconquerable +irritability toward that handsome and gentle young officer, kept +her mouth closed. "Besides," she said to herself, "he ought to +know, if he's such a fine gentleman as they say, just how I was +feeling, and that I don't mean any rudeness to him;" and with this +unanswerable feminine logic poor Thankful to some extent stilled +her own honest little heart. + +But not, I fear, entirely. The night was a restless one to her: +like all impulsive natures, the season of reflection, and perhaps +distrust, came to her upon acts that were already committed, and +when reason seemed to light the way only to despair. She saw the +folly of her intrusion at the headquarters, as she thought, only +when it was too late to remedy it; she saw the gracelessness and +discourtesy of her conduct to Major Van Zandt, only when distance +and time rendered an apology weak and ineffectual. I think she +cried a little to herself, lying in the strange gloomy chamber of +the healthfully sleeping Mistress Schuyler, the sweet security of +whose manifest goodness and kindness she alternately hated and +envied; and at last, unable to stand it longer, slipped noiselessly +from her bed, and stood very wretched and disconsolate before the +window that looked out upon the slope toward the Whippany River. +The moon on the new-fallen, frigid, and untrodden snow shone +brightly. Far to the left it glittered on the bayonet of a sentry +pacing beside the river-bank, and gave a sense of security to the +girl that perhaps strengthened another idea that had grown up in +her mind. Since she could not sleep, why should she not ramble +about until she could? She had been accustomed to roam about the +farm in all weathers and at all times and seasons. She recalled to +herself the night--a tempestuous one--when she had risen in serious +concern as to the lying-in of her favorite Alderney heifer, and how +she had saved the life of the calf, a weakling, dropped apparently +from the clouds in the tempest, as it lay beside the barn. With +this in her mind, she donned her dress again, and, with Mistress +Schuyler's mantle over her shoulders, noiselessly crept down the +narrow staircase, passed the sleeping servant on the settee, and, +opening the rear door, in another moment was inhaling the crisp +air, and tripping down the crisp snow of the hillside. + +But Mistress Thankful had overlooked one difference between her own +farm and a military encampment. She had not proceeded a dozen +yards before a figure apparently started out of the ground beneath +her, and, levelling a bayoneted musket across her path, called, +"Halt!" + +The hot blood mounted to the girl's cheek at the first imperative +command she had ever received in her life: nevertheless she halted +unconsciously, and without a word confronted the challenger with +her old audacity. + +"Who comes there?" reiterated the sentry, still keeping his bayonet +level with her breast. + +"Thankful Blossom," she responded promptly. + +The sentry brought his musket to a "present." "Pass, Thankful +Blossom, and God send it soon and the spring with it, and good- +night," he said, with a strong Milesian accent. And before the +still-amazed girl could comprehend the meaning of his abrupt +challenge, or his equally abrupt departure, he had resumed his +monotonous pace in the moonlight. Indeed, as she stood looking +after him, the whole episode, the odd unreality of the moonlit +landscape, the novelty of her position, the morbid play of her +thoughts, seemed to make it part of a dream which the morning light +might dissipate, but could never fully explain. + +With something of this feeling still upon her, she kept her way to +the river. Its banks were still fringed with ice, through which +its dark current flowed noiselessly. She knew it flowed through +the camp where lay her faithless lover, and for an instant indulged +the thought of following it, and facing him with the proof of his +guilt; but even at the thought she recoiled with a new and sudden +doubt in herself, and stood dreamily watching the shimmer of the +moon on the icy banks, until another, and, it seemed to her, +equally unreal vision suddenly stayed her feet, and drove the blood +from her feverish cheeks. + +A figure was slowly approaching from the direction of the sleeping +encampment. Tall, erect, and habited in a gray surtout, with a +hood partially concealing its face, it was the counterfeit +presentment of the ghostly visitant she had heard described. +Thankful scarcely breathed. The brave little heart that had not +quailed before the sentry's levelled musket a moment before now +faltered and stood still, as the phantom with a slow and majestic +tread moved toward her. She had only time to gain the shelter of a +tree before the figure, majestically unconscious of her presence, +passed slowly by. Through all her terror Thankful was still true +to a certain rustic habit of practical perception to observe that +the tread of the phantom was quite audible over the crust of snow, +and was visible and palpable as the imprint of a military boot. + +The blood came back to Thankful's cheek, and with it her old +audacity. In another instant she was out from the tree, and +tracking with a light feline tread the apparition that now loomed +up the hill before her. Slipping from tree to tree, she followed +until it passed before the door of a low hut or farm-shed that +stood midway up the hill. Here it entered, and the door closed +behind it. With every sense feverishly alert, Thankful, from the +secure advantage of a large maple, watched the door of the hut. In +a few moments it re-opened to the same figure free of its gray +enwrappings. Forgetful of every thing now, but detecting the face +of the impostor, the fearless girl left the tree, and placed +herself directly in the path of the figure. At the same moment it +turned toward her inquiringly, and the moonlight fell full upon the +calm, composed features of Gen. Washington. + +In her consternation Thankful could only drop an embarrassed +courtesy, and hang out two lovely signals of distress in her +cheeks. The face of the pseudo ghost alone remained unmoved. + +"You are wandering late, Mistress Thankful," he said at last, with +a paternal gravity; "and I fear that the formal restraint of a +military household has already given you some embarrassment. +Yonder sentry, for instance, might have stopped you." + +"Oh, he did!" said Thankful quickly; "but it's all right, please +your Excellency. "He asked me 'Who went there,' and I told him; +and he was vastly polite, I assure you." + +The grave features of the commander-in-chief relaxed in a smile. +"You are more happy than most of your sex in turning a verbal +compliment to practical account. For know then, dear young lady, +that in honor of your visit to the headquarters, the password to- +night through this encampment was none other than your own pretty +patronymic,--'Thankful Blossom.'" + +The tears glittered in the girl's eyes, and her lip trembled; but, +with all her readiness of speech, she could only say, "Oh, your +Excellency." + +"Then you DID pass the sentry?" continued Washington, looking at +her intently with a certain grave watchfulness in his gray eyes. +"And doubtless you wandered at the river-bank. Although I myself, +tempted by the night, sometimes extend my walk as far as yonder +shed, it were a hazardous act for a young lady to pass beyond the +protection of the line." + +"Oh! I met no one, your Excellency," said the usually truthful +Thankful hastily, rushing to her first lie with grateful +impetuosity. + +"And saw no one?" asked Washington quietly. + +"No one," said Thankful, raising her brown eyes to the general's. + +They both looked at each other,--the naturally most veracious young +woman in the colonies, and the subsequent allegorical impersonation +of truth in America,--and knew each other lied, and, I imagine, +respected each other for it. + +"I am glad to hear you say so, Mistress Thankful," said Washington +quietly; "for 'twould have been natural for you to have sought an +interview with your recreant lover in yonder camp, though the +attempt would have been unwise and impossible." + +"I had no such thought, your Excellency," said Thankful, who had +really quite forgotten her late intention; "yet, if with your +permission I could hold a few moments' converse with Capt. +Brewster, it would greatly ease my mind." + +"'Twould not be well for the present," said Washington +thoughtfully. "But in a day or two Capt. Brewster will be tried by +court-martial at Morristown. It shall be so ordered that when he +is conveyed thither his guard shall halt at the Blossom Farm. I +will see that the officer in command gives you an opportunity to +see him. And I think I can promise also, Mistress Thankful, that +your father shall be also present under his own roof, a free man." + +They had reached the entrance to the mansion, and entered the hall. +Thankful turned impulsively, and kissed the extended hand of the +commander. "You are so good! I have been so foolish--so very, +very wrong," she said, with a slight trembling of her lip. "And +your Excellency believes my story; and those gentlemen were NOT +spies, but even as they gave themselves to be." + +"I said not that much," replied Washington with a kindly smile, +"but no matter. Tell me rather, Mistress Thankful, how far your +acquaintance with these gentlemen has gone; or did it end with the +box on the ear that you gave the baron?" + +"He had asked me to ride with him to the Baskingridge, and I--had +said--yes," faltered Mistress Thankful. + +"Unless I misjudge you, Mistress Thankful, you can without great +sacrifice promise me that you will not see him until I give you my +permission," said Washington, with grave playfulness. + +The swinging light shone full in Thankful's truthful eyes as she +lifted them to his. + +"I do," she said quietly. + +"Good-night," said the commander, with a formal bow. + +"Good-night, your Excellency." + + +IV + + +The sun was high over the Short Hills when Mistress Thankful, the +next day, drew up her sweating mare beside the Blossom Farm gate. +She had never looked prettier, she had never felt more embarrassed, +as she entered her own house. During her rapid ride she had +already framed a speech of apology to Major Van Zandt, which, +however, utterly fled from her lips as that officer showed himself +respectfully on the threshold. Yet she permitted him to usurp the +functions of the grinning Caesar, and help her from her horse; +albeit she was conscious of exhibiting the awkward timidity of a +bashful rustic, until at last, with a stammering, "Thank ye," she +actually ran up stairs to hide her glowing face and far too +conscious eyelids. + +During the rest of that day Major Van Zandt quietly kept out of the +way, without obtrusively seeming to avoid her. Yet, when they met +casually in the performance of her household duties, the innocent +Mistress Thankful noticed, under her downcast penitential eyelids, +that the eyes of the officer followed her intently. And thereat +she fell unconsciously to imitating him; and so they eyed each +other furtively like cats, and rubbed themselves along the walls of +rooms and passages when they met, lest they should seem designedly +to come near each other, and enacted the gravest and most formal of +genuflexions, courtesies, and bows, when they accidentally DID +meet. And just at the close of the second day, as the elegant +Major Van Zandt was feeling himself fast becoming a drivelling +idiot and an awkward country booby, the arrival of a courier from +headquarters saved that gentleman his self-respect forever. + +Mistress Thankful was in her sitting-room when he knocked at her +door. She opened it in sudden, conscious trepidation. + +"I ask pardon for intruding, Mistress Thankful Blossom," he said +gravely; "but I have here"--he held out a pretentious document--"a +letter for you from headquarters. May I hope that it contains good +news,--the release of your father.--and that it relieves you from +my presence, and an espionage which I assure you cannot be more +unpleasant to you than it has been to myself." + +As he entered the room, Thankful had risen to her feet with the +full intention of delivering to him her little set apology; but, as +he ended his speech, she looked at him blankly, and burst out +crying. + +Of course he was in an instant at her side, and holding her cold +little hand. Then she managed to say, between her tears, that she +had been wanting to make an apology to him; that she had wanted to +say ever since she arrived that she had been rude, very rude, and +that she knew he never could forgive her; that she had been trying +to say that she never could forget his gentle forbearance: "only," +she added, suddenly raising her tear-fringed brown lids to the +astonished man, "YOU WOULDN'T EVER LET ME!" + +"Dear Mistress Thankful," said the major, in conscience-stricken +horror, "if I have made myself distant to you, believe me it was +only because I feared to intrude upon your sorrow. I really--dear +Mistress Thankful--I--" + +"When you took all the pains to go round the hall instead of +through the dining-room, lest I should ask you to forgive me," +sobbed Mistress Thankful, "I thought--you--must--hate me, and +preferred to--" + +"Perhaps this letter may mitigate your sorrow, Mistress Thankful," +said the officer, pointing to the letter she still held +unconsciously in her hand. + +With a blush at her pre-occupation, Thankful opened the letter. It +was a half-official document, and ran as follows:-- + + +"The Commander-in-Chief is glad to inform Mistress Thankful Blossom +that the charges preferred against her father have, upon fair +examination, been found groundless and trivial. The Commander-in- +Chief further begs to inform Mistress Blossom that the gentleman +known to her under the name of the 'Baron Pomposo' was his +Excellency Don Juan Morales, Ambassador and Envoy Extraordinary of +the Court of Spain, and that the gentleman known to her as the +'Count Ferdinand' was Senor Godoy, Secretary to the Embassy. The +Commander-in-Chief wishes to add that Mistress Thankful Blossom is +relieved of any further obligation of hospitality toward these +honorable gentlemen, as the Commander-in-Chief regrets to record +the sudden and deeply-to-be-deplored death of his Excellency this +morning by typhoid fever, and the possible speedy return of the +Embassy. + +"In conclusion, the Commander-in-Chief wishes to bear testimony to +the Truthfulness, Intuition, and Discretion of Mistress Thankful +Blossom. + +"By order of his Excellency, + +"Gen. GEORGE WASHINGTON. + +"ALEX. HAMILTON, Secretary. + +"To Mistress THANKFUL BLOSSOM, of Blossom Farm." + + +Thankful Blossom was silent for a few moments, and then raised her +abashed eyes to Major Van Zandt. A single glance satisfied her +that he knew nothing of the imposture that had been practised upon +her,--knew nothing of the trap into which her vanity and self-will +had led her. + +"Dear Mistress Thankful," said the major, seeing the distress in +her face, "I trust the news is not ill. Surely I gathered from the +sergeant that--" + +"What?" said Thankful, looking at him intently. + +"That in twenty-four hours at furthest your father would be free, +and that I should be relieved--" + +"I know that you are a-weary of your task, major," said Thankful +bitterly: "rejoice, then, to know your information is correct, and +that my father is exonerated--unless--unless this is a forgery, and +Gen. Washington should turn out to be somebody else, and YOU should +turn out to be somebody else--" And she stopped short, and hid her +wet eyes in the window-curtains. + +"Poor girl!" said Major Van Zandt to himself. "This trouble has +undoubtedly frenzied her. Fool that I was to lay up the insult of +one that sorrow and excitement had bereft of reason and +responsibility! 'Twere better I should retire at once, and leave +her to herself," and the young man slowly retreated toward the +door. + +But at this moment there were alarming symptoms of distress in the +window-curtain; and the major paused as a voice from its dimity +depths said plaintively, "And YOU are going without forgiving me!" + +"Forgive YOU, Mistress Thankful," said the major, striding to the +curtain, and seizing a little hand that was obtruded from its +folds,--"forgive you? rather can you forgive me for the folly--the +cruelty of mistaking--of--of"--and here the major, hitherto famous +for facile compliments, utterly broke down. But the hand he held +was no longer cold, but warm and intelligent; and in default of +coherent speech he held fast by that as the thread of his +discourse, until Mistress Thankful quietly withdrew it, thanked him +for his forgiveness, and retired deeper behind the curtain. + +When he had gone, she threw herself in a chair, and again gave way +to a passionate flood of tears. In the last twenty-four hours her +pride had been utterly humbled: the independent spirit of this +self-willed little beauty had met for the first time with defeat. +When she had got over her womanly shock at the news of the sham +baron's death, she had, I fear, only a selfish regard at his taking +off; believing that if living he would in some way show the world-- +which just then consisted of the headquarters and Major Van Zandt-- +that he had really made love to her, and possibly did honorably +love her still, and might yet give her an opportunity to reject +him. And now he was dead, and she was held up to the world as the +conceited plaything of a fine gentleman's masquerading sport. That +her father's cupidity and ambition made him sanction the imposture, +in her bitterness she never doubted. No! Lover, friend, father-- +all had been false to her, and the only kindness she had received +was from the men she had wantonly insulted. Poor little Blossom! +indeed, a most premature Blossom; I fear a most unthankful Blossom, +sitting there shivering in the first chill wind of adversity, +rocking backward and forward, with the skirt of her dimity short- +gown over her shoulders, and her little buckled shoes and clocked +stockings pathetically crossed before her. + +But healthy youth is re-active; and in an hour or two Thankful was +down at the cow-shed, with her arms around the neck of her favorite +heifer, to whom she poured out much of her woes, and from whom she +won an intelligent sort of slobbering sympathy. And then she +sharply scolded Caesar for nothing at all, and a moment after +returned to the house with the air and face of a deeply injured +angel, who had been disappointed in some celestial idea of setting +this world right, but was still not above forgiveness,--a spectacle +that sunk Major Van Zandt into the dark depths of remorse, and +eventually sent him to smoke a pipe of Virginia with his men in the +roadside camp; seeing which, Thankful went early to bed, and cried +herself to sleep. And Nature possibly followed her example; for at +sunset a great thaw set in, and by midnight the freed rivers and +brooks were gurgling melodiously, and tree and shrub and fence were +moist and dripping. + +The red dawn at last struggled through the vaporous veil that hid +the landscape. Then occurred one of those magical changes peculiar +to the climate, yet perhaps pre-eminently notable during that +historic winter and spring. By ten o'clock on that 3d of May, +1780, a fervent June-like sun had rent that vaporous veil, and +poured its direct rays upon the gaunt and haggard profile of the +Jersey hills. The chilled soil responded but feebly to that kiss; +perhaps a few of the willows that yellowed the river-banks took on +a deeper color. But the country folk were certain that spring had +come at last; and even the correct and self-sustained Major Van +Zandt came running in to announce to Mistress Thankful that one of +his men had seen a violet in the meadow. In another moment +Mistress Thankful had donned her cloak and pattens to view this +firstling of the laggard summer. It was quite natural that Major +Van Zandt should accompany her as she tripped on; and so, without a +thought of their past differences, they ran like very children down +the moist and rocky slope that led to the quaggy meadow. Such was +the influence of the vernal season. + +But the violets were hidden. Mistress Thankful, regardless of the +wet leaves and her new gown, groped with her fingers among the +withered grasses. Major Van Zandt leaned against a bowlder, and +watched her with admiring eyes. + +"You'll never find flowers that way," she said at last, looking up +to him impatiently. "Go down on your knees like an honest man. +There are some things in this world worth stooping for." + +The major instantly dropped on his knees beside her. But at that +moment Mistress Thankful found her posies, and rose to her feet. +"Stay where you are," she said mischievously, as she stooped down, +and placed a flower in the lapel of his coat. "That is to make +amends for my rudeness. Now get up." + +But the major did not rise. He caught the two little hands that +had seemed to flutter like birds against his breast, and, looking +up into the laughing face above him, said, "Dear Mistress Thankful, +dare I remind you of your own words, that 'there be some things +worth stooping for'? Think of my love, Mistress Thankful, as a +flower,--mayhap not as gracious to you as your violets, but as +honest and--and--and--as--" + +"Ready to spring up in a single night," laughed Thankful. "But no; +get up, major! What would the fine ladies of Morristown say of +your kneeling at the feet of a country girl,--the play and sport of +every fine gentleman? What if Mistress Bolton should see her own +cavalier, the modish Major Van Zandt, proffering his affections to +the disgraced sweetheart of a perjured traitor? Leave go my hand, +I pray you, major,--if you respect--" + +She was free, yet she faltered a moment beside him, with tears +quivering on her long brown lashes. Then she said tremulously, +"Rise up, major. Let us think no more of this. I pray you forgive +me, if I have again been rude." + +The major struggled to rise to his feet. But he could not. And +then I regret to have to record that the fact became obvious that +one of his shapely legs was in a bog-hole, and that he was +perceptibly sinking out of sight. Whereat Mistress Thankful +trilled out a three-syllabled laugh, looked demure and painfully +concerned at his condition, and then laughed again. The major +joined in her mirth, albeit his face was crimson. And then, with a +little cry of alarm, she flew to his side, and put her arms around +him. + +"Keep away, keep away, for Heaven's sake, Mistress Blossom," he +said quickly, "or I shall plunge you into my mishap, and make you +as ridiculous as myself." + +But the quick-witted girl had already leaped to an adjacent +bowlder. "Take off your sash," she said quickly; "fasten it to +your belt, and throw it to me." He did so. She straightened +herself back on the rock. "Now, all together," she cried, with a +preliminary strain on the sash; and then the cords of her well- +trained muscles stood out on her rounded arms, and, with a long +pull and a strong pull and a pull all together, she landed the +major upon the rock. And then she laughed; and then, inconsistent +as it may appear, she became grave, and at once proceeded to scrape +him off, and rub him down with dried leaves, with fern-twigs, with +her handkerchief, with the border of her mantle, as if he were a +child, until he blushed with alternate shame and secret +satisfaction. + +They spoke but little on their return to the farm-house, for +Mistress Thankful had again become grave. And yet the sun shone +cheerily above them; the landscape was filled with the joy of +resurrection and new and awakened life; the breeze whispered gentle +promises of hope, and the fruition of their hopes in the summer to +come. And these two fared on until they reached the porch, with a +half-pleased, half-frightened consciousness that they were not the +same beings who had left it a half-hour before. + +Nevertheless at the porch Mistress Thankful regained something of +her old audacity. As they stood together in the hall, she handed +him back the sash she had kept with her. As she did so, she could +not help saying, "There are some things worth stooping for, Major +Van Zandt." + +But she had not calculated upon the audacity of the man; and as she +turned to fly she was caught by his strong arm, and pinioned to his +side. She struggled, honestly I think, and perhaps more frightened +at her own feelings than at his strength; but it is to be recorded +that he kissed her in a moment of comparative yielding, and then, +frightened himself, released her quickly, whereat she fled to her +room, and threw herself panting and troubled upon her bed. For an +hour or two she lay there, with flushed cheeks and conflicting +thoughts. "He must never kiss me again," she said softly to +herself, "unless"--but the interrupting thought said, "I shall die +if he kiss me not again; and I never can kiss another." And then +she was roused by a footstep upon the stair, which in that brief +time she had learned to know and look for, and a knock at the door. +She opened it to Major Van Zandt, white and so colorless as to +bring out once more the faint red line made by her riding-whip two +days before, as if it had risen again in accusation. The blood +dropped out of her cheeks as she gazed at him in silence. + +"An escort of dragoons," said Major Van Zandt slowly, and with +military precision, "has just arrived, bringing with them one Capt. +Allan Brewster, of the Connecticut Contingent, on his way to +Morristown to be tried for mutiny and treason. A private note from +Col. Hamilton instructs me to allow him to have a private audience +with you--if YOU so wish it." + +With a woman's swift and too often hopeless intuition, Thankful +knew that this was not the sole contents of the letter, and that +her relations with Capt. Brewster were known to the man before her. +But she drew herself up a little proudly, and, turning her truthful +eyes upon the major, said, "I DO so wish it." + +"It shall be done as you desire, Mistress Blossom," returned the +officer with cold politeness, as he turned upon his heel. + +"One moment, Major Van Zandt," said Thankful swiftly. + +The major turned quickly; but Thankful's eyes were gazing +thoughtfully forward, and scarcely glanced at him. "I would +prefer," she said timidly and hesitatingly, "that this interview +should not take place under the roof where--where--where--my father +lives. Half-way down the meadow there is a barn, and before it a +broken part of the wall, fronting on a sycamore-tree. HE will know +where it is. Tell him I will see him there in half an hour." + +A smile, which the major had tried to make a careless one, curled +his lip satirically as he bowed in reply. "It is the first time," +he said dryly, "that I believe I have been honored with arranging a +tryst for two lovers; but believe me, Mistress Thankful, I will do +my best. In half an hour I will turn my prisoner over to you." + +In half an hour the punctual Mistress Thankful, with a hood hiding +her pale face, passed the officer in the hall, on the way to her +rendezvous. An hour later Caesar came with a message that Mistress +Thankful would like to see him. When the major entered the +sitting-room, he was shocked to find her lying pale and motionless +on the sofa; but as the door closed she rose to her feet, and +confronted him. + +"I do not know," she said slowly, "whether you are aware that the +man I just now parted from was for a twelvemonth past my +sweetheart, and that I believed I loved him, and KNEW I was true to +him. If you have not heard it, I tell you now, for the time will +come when you will hear part of it from the lips of others, and I +would rather you should take the whole truth from mine. This man +was false to me. He betrayed two friends of mine as spies. I +could have forgiven it, had it been only foolish jealousy; but it +was, I have since learned from his own lips, only that he might +gratify his spite against the commander-in-chief by procuring their +arrest, and making a serious difficulty in the American camp, by +means of which he hoped to serve his own ends. He told me this, +believing that I sympathized with him in his hatred of the +commander-in-chief, and in his own wrongs and sufferings. I +confess to my shame, Major Van Zandt, that two days ago I did +believe him, and that I looked upon you as a mere catch-poll or +bailiff of the tyrant. That I found out how I was deceived when I +saw the commander-in-chief, you, major, who know him so well, need +not be told. Nor was it necessary for me to tell this man that he +had deceived me: for I felt that--that--was--not--the--only reason-- +why I could no longer return--his love." + +She paused, as the major approached her earnestly, and waved him +back with her hand. "He reproached me bitterly with my want of +feeling for his misfortunes," she went on again: "he recalled my +past protestations; he showed me my love-letters; and he told me +that if I were still his true sweetheart I ought to help him. I +told him if he would never call me by that name again; if he would +give up all claim to me; if he would never speak, write to me, nor +see me again; if he would hand me back my letters,--I would help +him." She stopped: the blood rushed into her pale face. "You will +remember, major, that I accepted this man's love as a young, +foolish, trustful girl; but when I made him this offer--he--he +accepted it." + +"The dog!" said Major Van Zandt. "But in what way could you help +this double traitor?" + +"I HAVE helped him," said Thankful quietly. + +"But how?" said Major Van Zandt. + +"By becoming a traitor myself," she said, turning upon him almost +fiercely. "Hear me! While you were quietly pacing these halls, +while your men were laughing and talking in the road, Caesar was +saddling my white mare, the fleetest in the country. He led her to +the lane below. That mare is now two miles away, with Capt. +Brewster on her back. Why do you not start, major? Look at me. I +am a traitor, and this is my bribe;" and she drew a package of +letters from her bosom, and flung them on the table. + +She had been prepared for an outbreak or exclamation from the man +before her, but not for his cold silence. "Speak," she cried at +last, passionately. "Speak! Open your lips, if only to curse me! +Order in your men to arrest me. I will proclaim myself guilty, and +save your honor. But only speak!" + +"May I ask," said Major Van Zandt coldly, "why you have twice +honored me with a blow?" + +"Because I loved you; because, when I first saw you I saw the only +man that was my master, and I rebelled; because, when I found I +could not help but love you, I knew I never had loved before, and I +would wipe out with one stroke all the past that rose in judgment +against me; because I would not have you ever confronted with one +endearing word of mine that was not meant for you." + +Major Van Zandt turned from the window where he had stood, and +faced the girl with sad resignation. "If I have in my foolishness, +Mistress Thankful, shown you how great was your power over me, when +you descended to this artifice to spare my feelings by confessing +your own love for me, you should have remembered that you were +doing that which forever kept me from wooing or winning you. If +you had really loved me your heart, as a woman's, would have warned +you against that which my heart, as a gentleman's, has made a law +of honor; when I tell you, as much for the sake of relieving your +own conscience as for the sake of justifying mine, that if this +man, a traitor, my prisoner, and your recognized lover, had escaped +from my custody without your assistance, connivance, or even +knowledge, I should have deemed it my duty to forsake you until I +caught him, even if we had been standing before the altar." + +Thankful heard him, but only as a strange voice in the distance, as +she stood with fixed eyes, and breathless, parted lips before him. +Yet even then I fear that, womanlike, she did not comprehend his +rhetoric of honor, but only caught here and there a dull, benumbing +idea that he despised her, and that in her effort to win his love +she had killed it, and ruined him forever. + +"If you think it strange," continued the major, "that, believing as +I do, I stand here only to utter moral axioms when my duty calls me +to pursue your lover, I beg you to believe that it is only for your +sake. I wish to allow a reasonable time between your interview +with him, and his escape, that shall save you from any suspicion of +complicity. Do not think," he added with a sad smile, as the girl +made an impatient step toward him, "do not think I am running any +risk. The man cannot escape. A cordon of pickets surrounds the +camp for many miles. He has not the countersign, and his face and +crime are known." + +"Yes," said Thankful eagerly, "but a part of his own regiment +guards the Baskingridge road." + +"How know you this?" said the major, seizing her hand. + +"He told me." + +Before she could fall on her knees, and beg his forgiveness, he had +darted from the room, given an order, and returned with cheeks and +eyes blazing. + +"Hear me," he said rapidly, taking the girl's two hands, "you know +not what you've done. I forgive you. But this is no longer a +matter of duty, but my personal honor. I shall pursue this man +alone. I shall return with him, or not at all. Farewell. God +bless you!" + +But before he reached the door she caught him again. "Only say you +have forgiven me once more." + +"I do." + +"Guert!" + +There was something in the girl's voice more than this first +utterance of his Christian name, that made him pause. + +"I told--a--lie--just--now. There is a fleeter horse in the stable +than my mare; 'tis the roan filly in the second stall." + +"God bless you!" + +He was gone. She waited to hear the clatter of his horse's hoofs +in the roadway. When Caesar came in a few moments later, to tell +the news of Capt. Brewster's escape, the room was empty; but it was +soon filled again by a dozen turbulent troopers. + +"Of course she's gone," said Sergeant Tibbitts: "the jade flew with +the captain." + +"Ay, 'tis plain enough. Two horses are gone from the stable +besides the major's," said Private Hicks. + +Nor was this military criticism entirely a private one. When the +courier arrived at headquarters the next morning, it was to bring +the report that Mistress Thankful Blossom, after assisting her +lover to escape had fled with him. "The renegade is well off our +hands," said Gen. Sullivan gruffly: "he has saved us the public +disgrace of a trial. But this is bad news of Major Van Zandt." + +"What news of the major?" asked Washington quickly. + +"He pursued the vagabond as far as Springfield, killing his horse, +and falling himself insensible before Major Merton's quarters. +Here he became speedily delirious, fever supervened, and the +regimental surgeon, after a careful examination, pronounced his +case one of small-pox." + +A whisper of horror and pity went around the room. "Another +gallant soldier, who should have died leading a charge, laid by the +heels by a beggar's filthy distemper," growled Sullivan. "Where +will it end?" + +"God knows," said Hamilton. "Poor Van Zandt! But whither was he +sent,--to the hospital?" + +"No: a special permit was granted in his case; and 'tis said he was +removed to the Blossom Farm,--it being remote from neighbors,--and +the house placed under quarantine. Abner Blossom has prudently +absented himself from the chances of infection, and the daughter +has fled. The sick man is attended only by a black servant and an +ancient crone; so that, if the poor major escapes with his life or +without disfigurement, pretty Mistress Bolton of Morristown need +not be scandalized or jealous." + + +V + + +The ancient crone alluded to in the last chapter had been standing +behind the window-curtains of that bedroom which had been Thankful +Blossom's in the weeks gone by. She did not move her head, but +stood looking demurely, after the manner of ancient crones, over +the summer landscape. For the summer had come before the tardy +spring was scarce gone, and the elms before the window no longer +lisped, but were eloquent in the softest zephyrs. There was the +flash of birds in among the bushes, the occasional droning of bees +in and out the open window, and a perpetually swinging censer of +flower incense rising from below. The farm had put on its gayest +bridal raiment; and looking at the old farm-house shadowed with +foliage and green with creeping vines, it was difficult to conceive +that snow had ever lain on its porches, or icicles swung from its +mossy eaves. + +"Thankful!" said a voice still tremulous with weakness. + +The ancient crone turned, drew aside the curtains, and showed the +sweet face of Thankful Blossom, more beautiful even in its +paleness. + +"Come here, darling," repeated the voice. + +Thankful stepped to the sofa whereon lay the convalescent Major Van +Zandt. + +"Tell me, sweetheart," said the major, taking her hand in his, +"when you married me, as you told the chaplain, that you might have +the right to nurse me, did you never think that if death spared me +I might be so disfigured that even you, dear love, would have +turned from me with loathing?" + +"That was why I did it, dear," said Thankful mischievously. "I +knew that the pride, and the sense of honor, and self-devotion of +some people, would have kept them from keeping their promises to a +poor girl." + +"But, darling," continued the major, raising her hand to his lips, +"suppose the case had been reversed: suppose you had taken the +disease, that I had recovered without disfigurement, but that this +sweet face--" + +"I thought of that too," interrupted Thankful. "Well, what would +you have done, dear?" said the major, with his old mischievous +smile. + +"I should have died," said Thankful gravely. + +"But how?" + +"Somehow. But you are to go to sleep, and not ask impertinent and +frivolous questions; for father is coming to-morrow." + +"Thankful, dear, do you know what the trees and the birds said to +me as I lay there tossing with fever?" + +"No, dear." + +"Thankful Blossom! Thankful Blossom! Thankful Blossom is coming!" + +"Do you know what I said, sweetheart, as I lifted your dear head +from the ground when you reeled from your horse just as I overtook +you at Springfield?" + +"No, dear." + +"There are some things in life worth stooping for." + +And she winged this Parthian arrow home with a kiss. + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Thankful Blossom, by Bret Harte + diff --git a/old/tkfbl10.zip b/old/tkfbl10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..49cc83e --- /dev/null +++ b/old/tkfbl10.zip |